Trying to Use FitDay to Gain Weight? Read Me!
 

Hello I am a new member of Fitday and would like to ask if its possible to allow fitday to set your goal weight higher than you actualy weigh, everytime I try it wont update. I am 115 lbs at 5'8 and would like to use the weight goal features in my fitday so I can track my weight gain.


MODERATOR'S NOTE:

Unfortunately, the FitDay software does not support a weight gain goal.

Weight loss is a relatively simple calculation, because for the most part it means losing fat; weight gain is far more complex, as most people are not looking to put fat on, but muscle, and this calculation is much more complex and involves activities on a whole different level. In addition, many of those wanting to gain weight are dangerously underweight to begin with, and any weight gain should be under a doctor's care, not a website's. Essentially this is the reason FD does not and will not (at least for the foreseeable future) offer help for those who wish to gain weight.

- IB-Kim

I would like to be able to do this as well

http://thegazz.com/gblogs/karinfulle.../09/twiggy.jpg

If you are a Twiggy you might want to check out eatting disorder support too.

Personally, I am following a strength building program with the intention to add as much lean muscle mass as possible. Naturally, this will lead to a healthy gain in weight as well. I would guess the original poster has the same intentions.

I don't know if that is possible.

If it is not, you might want to try a reverse showing of your weight gain. Set what is your actual goal weight as your current weight and set your real current weight as your goal weight. Every time you gain weight, record it as a weight loss. If you lose weight, record it as a weight gain.

Hope that helps and is not too confusing.

Calorie Deficit
 

Hi. I am new to FitDay. 1st post on here.

I am a little confused.

1. I hit the gym almost every day. It is a lifestyle thing and I always go there on the way home from work unless I am booked elsewhere. When I enter in all my activities I get to a total of about 2500 to 2800 calories used each day and then when I enter in all my food I total to about 2000 to 2200 a day. So I am constantly working off more calories than I take in. And yet I am not reducing body fat. Anyone know why this is or if I am entering something wrongly?

2. I am trying to put on weight and so I cannot record my weight goal and therefore track my progress because it errors out. I am currently 74kgs and want to be 80kgs. Anyone know if there is an adjustment being made to this part of the system?

Thanks
Marshal Max

I find the calorie burned estimates on here quite high, by about 50% for me (it says I burn 3000 calories most days and I know it's more like 2000). That goes for both their general lifestyle calculations and most of the individual activities. I would guess that you're not seeing any loss because you're actually only burning about 2000 calories.

That being said, if you want to gain weight, even lean mass, it's not going to happen on a calorie deficit. So it might be better to keep eating around 2000 calories, make sure to get enough protein, and stick with your workouts. Give it some more time and if you don't see results, maybe add more resistance training and/or vary your workouts more. With any luck, you'll gain muscle mass without increasing fat, thus decreasing your body fat %. It doesn't sound like you have much fat to lose, so cutting too many calories might cause you to lose lean mass as well as fat, not what you want.

If you've only been working out and tracking your diet for a few weeks, it may just take more time to see results. Good luck!

Thanks. The thought about the high burn rates had crossed my mind.

I am not intentially watching my calories. I just eat 6 times a day but never any massive meals. I just finished Cabot's book about residual carbs at the end of each day get turned into cholesterol and am really just focused on increasing protein throughout the day and minimising carbs after midday. Most muscle builders get the wrong idea and consume masses of stuff and then wonder why 1/2 their gain is actually fat!

hi,

i'm a distance runner, so i'm doing different work than you are doing; the caloric balance generated by fitday seems to work for me. my weight has been very constant over several years, and fitday's calculators show i'm usually within a few 100 calories in my input vs output levels.

i'm trying to drop several pounds during my next marathon training period, and i will be keeping an eye on my weight and my average caloric deficit... so i'll have a quantitative measure of the error in fitday's calculation during the next few weeks.

best wishes

Hey mcsolar, I run too. Calorie burn calculators seem to vary wildly. The one here says I burn almost 1000 calories for 5 miles (!) whereas I just compared on a couple of running sites and got 530 and 457. The rest of their calculation (for everyday activities) also seems high, though not outlandish.

I find the food calories here to be enormously helpful and, I think, pretty accurate, but I don't lose weight eating as much as it tells me to. But I would bet that it's closer for some than others; everyone's body composition, metabolism, etc. is a little bit different. I wonder how good it is at adjusting for sex, age, weight, etc.

I guess the point is to experiment and find what balance works for you, and to be aware that if the weight on the scale isn't corresponding to the calculators here, the calorie burn formula might be a more likely culprit than you doing something wrong or something being wrong with your body.

Take the calorie calculators with a grain of salt
 

You can't tell whether you're adding lean body mass (weight training builds bone density, too) by the number on the scale anyway. You'd need to have your body fat measured at intervals to see if your body composition is changing.

There are a few places to do this and several methods, but you'd need to seek help from someone who knows what they're doing. For example, some trainers don't know how to take skin fold measurements properly with the callipers they weild, making the numbers meaningless.

I would suggest you look for a Registered Dietician (look for "RD" after the name) to meet with a few times. He or she will help you analyze what you're doing, give you reliable information and sound advice about how to meet your goals. Your health insurance might even cover the fee. Many will.

Go to http://www.eatright.org/ and click on 'find a registered dietician'. An RD can even help you with the body composition questions, or point you to knowledgeable people who can.

hi jflamingfeet,

yes, the numbers here seem high... i was chalking that up for an estimate for the "afterburn" effect that is mentioned in a number of recent works... where after a run our bodies burn calories at a higher rate than basal metabolism. even at faster speeds, every other calorie measuring device that i've used (hrm, treadmills, etc) says i burn well under 100 cals per mile, whereas here at fitday it's always more than 100.

and sure, i agree that the calculator here is just for an estimate. just like in running, for instance yasso 800m intervals can estimate your marathon time, but it's always been less than my marathon time when i've done them. i'm to find out how close it is, and use the food journal to see patterns in my eating, and then tweak them.

kimmy: as a runner in the desert south-west, i know that the scale numbers are quite variable! not only is your body composition change reflected by that number, but hydration level too. during the summer i can fluctuate 10-15 lbs a day as i lose and then replace a gallon of fluid during/after a long (2-3 hour) run. long term trends in my weight over a week or more are the only way that i can really see how my body weight is changing, and you're right that more detailed analysis is the only way you can measure composition changes.

I think fit day overestimates a bit on the calories burned for normal activities, but I think it underestimates a bit on activities like running for me, at least compared to what the treadmills at my local gym claim. I always punch in my weight on the machines at the gym (4 different brands) and seem to get about 80-100 calories more burned by the machine calculations on a 5 mile run (I get about the same regardless of which brand i'm on) It used to underestimate on ultimate frisbee too, but i noticed they give it more calories per hr than they did when I was using this a few yrs ago.

Trying to Gain Weight
 

Hi,

I've been looking for a program/website like this and am happy with all of the features. My only problem is that I am trying to gain (a healthy amount) of weight. The weight goal won't let me update with a weight that is higher than my current weight. Is there any way around this problem?

Thanks

I have the same problem!!!

Same here. I've always been pretty slender. I've worked out vigorously 2x to 3x per week since spring 2007 and eaten fairly carefully throughout (fresh, whole fruits & veggies, quality proteins and fats [lean meats, dairy, nuts], whole grains, etc.). In that 2 1/2 year span I've gained about 20 lbs. Have been using Fitday on & off during that time, but only as a food tracker. Would still like to gain about 10 more lbs. and then maintain that weight for a while.

But when I tried to use Fitday (free version) to set a modest weight-gain goal, it gave me the same pink bar across the screen and wouldn't let me set a higher goal weight than current weight.

I imagine the vast majority of Fitday users want to lose or maintain their weight, but I also know there must be some others, like me--athletes, perhaps--who want to use it to help them gain weight. I'm pretty sure I've seen bodybuilders refer to their Fitday log on fitness websites, and surely not all of them were only trying to lose weight--were they?

I guess if a person wanted to, he/she could do a clunky workaround by just setting a weight-LOSS goal to see how much activity to add or how many calories to subtract to reach that goal, and then just do the opposite. But that seems awfully complicated.

So what gives? Anyone? Isn't there any way to override this weight-loss bias? Is this a bug or a "feature"?

I would suggest to anyone wanting to count calories burned during a workout to buy a heart rate monitor. That is the only real accurate way to measure calories burned. There are several on the market and can range anywhere from $75.00 US to over $250.00. I have a Polar FT-40 and I love it. You can also download the receiver to your computer and keep track of your activities through the Polar Personal Trainer website. I find the more I log the more I stay conscious of my needs. When I get done with a workout I log my activities in FitDay and I simply adjust the time spent to reflect the calories burned.

not sure if this is an old dead thread but I'd also like this option , even though fitday says I'm already overweight by BMI calculation I plan on being quite obese by the standard of that scale

Why doesnt this site cater for people trying to GAIN weight?!?
 

Im 21, Male and trying to gain weight. Currently 9st 2 and am concidered just 'underweight'. Im attempting to GAIN over 1 1/2 stone and this website is excellent at helping me keep track of food intake etc. However, the 'Weight Goal' feature does NOT accept a goal higher than your current weight.. Would be nice to see this added in the future? Im sure primarily people on this website are trying to lose weight, but weight gain is also a big thing to a lot of individuals.

I'd like to set a maintenance weight as a goal too. When I get the weight off, I plan to keep it that way.

Weight GAIN?
 

I know it's counter-intuitive to the typical weight-loss goals of most folks, but I have a problem just the same. I have tried to update my weight-goal showing a GAIN of 30 pounds but it will not allow it.

I am a small guy, 5' 9" ish and 125 pounds. Some would call this scrawny; so be it. But my goal is to indeed put on 25-30 pounds of mass primarily being muscle mass. Is there any way to modify this FitDay experience to my needs? Is there ANYONE on here that utilizes the service to this side of the fence? I'm looking to do P90X and use heavy weights with low reps and change my 'diet' to skyrocket my protein intake and hopefully this combination will yield a weight gain and give a skinny guy some bulk!

Help?

Thank you,
Brad

Healthy Weight Gain
 

As for some people the aim is healthy weight gain (building lean muscle mass) would it be possible for FitDay online to allow you to set a weight goal where you gain weight?

At the moment it throws an error and only allows weight loss, however this is not everbodies goal.

Would just make the software a little more flexible. I'm 5'6 and 152.6lb but aiming for about 160lb over the next 7 weeks but it won't allow me to enter this.

How tall are you if you don't mind me asking?

Brad, I can't help you in regards to fitday, but have a couple questions for you. 1) how old are you? 2) how many calories do you consume & burn per day?
I did P90X and it will help put on muscle but is more geared for getting people lean. It will help but you may want to go easy on the cardio routines, they'll have you burning too many calories to put on 25-30 pounds. Have you tried any weight gainers?

I am also trying to gain lean mass, while shedding some extra fat. I therefore can't set a weight goal myself either!

I have gained about 25 lb over the last year or so and I would say that you would find it very difficult if not imbossible to gain that much weight by using p90x. What you need to do (along with a good diet) is get into some powerlifting and bodybuilding exercises that will increase your free testosterone and mass), having said that, p90x is an OK place to start at for the first month or two into your building program.

As 01gt4.6 says, you will need to eat well. Being a skinny guy means you will need to put in a lot more calories than you are used to.

As far as protein goes, it is standard to take in at least 1gram protein per lb of body weight each day.

Brad, i'm in the same predicament. I'm 6-2, 160 and trying to put on muscle mass as well. I used P90X for a while, but realized its more for ppl who are wanting to shred fat and looked ripped. I've read that if you want bulk, you can use P90X for base fitness for a few weeks (skip the cardio stuff), but you'll eventually need to hit the gym and the heavy weights. Compound exercises on the large muscle groups works best, using heavy weight.
Also important, like the others said, is to eat right. Use the Harris-Benedict equation to calculate your BMR (how many calories you need to eat to maintain your current weight.) Then multiply that total by 1.55 to signify moderate exercise (about 3 times a week in the gym), then take that total and add 500 to it in order to (hopefully) gain about a pound a week. This grand total is the number of calories you should consume per day if you wanna gain weight. It should be broken down into about 20% protein, or more if you want, 30% fat (as much good fat as possible, ex. monounsaturated), and the other 50% carbs. Thats where this website comes into play for me, i only use it as a calorie tracker.
Hope this helps, good luck!

Hey all,

Thing that helped me the most in terms of lean mass was good old powerlifting. Deadlifts, squats, not benching so much but you can if you want, low reps, heavy weights. I started serious lifting about 2 years ago and though I only gained 5 lbs of scale weight my body composition changed drastically. I can't know for certain since I didn't get any fancy measurements done but I'm guessing I went from around 22-23%bf to around 16-18%bf now.

Dietwise, extra protein is a must. As for the other macros, get as much natural fat as you can: bacon, eggs, avocados, nuts. Use carbs only around your workout time. This will help burn fat, spare muscle, prevent carb metabolism from interfering with consistent, even protein utilization, and make your muscles stand out. Try to avoid soy products, since they contain biochemicals that mimic estrogen and will negate your efforts.

I've sort of plateaued though right now, so I'm temporarily moving up to a higher rep scheme for the time being.

BTW, I'm 6'0" and 165lbs.

...gaining weight?
 

Hey all,

I feel like I might be a bit of an oddity here, but I'm trying to put on weight. I'm 5'7 and 130 pounds.

I tried to set a weight goal for myself, but you can't set it higher than your current weight. Any work around that anyone knows of?

Thanks,
Allan

Weight Goal - Gain Weight
 

In the weight goal section, what if your goal is to gain weight?

when i enter in my weight goal it says "Your goal weight is greater than your starting weight."

Any way to change this?

Can't add a custom weight goal
 

This is a suggestion for Fit Day.

I know a lot of people at my gym use fit day who are trying to gain muscle mass. I am trying to put on 5-10 pounds of muscle. The site is a great way to track calories and my protein/carbs/fat ratio.

I really wish I could enter a custom weight goal for myself that is more than my current weight. Currently, when I try to set my goal, it comes back with an error and says my goal weight can't be more than my starting weight. I don't understand why this doesn't work. I should be able to set my goal to whatever weight I want.

Hey,

I agree, Im currently 5'7 and 100 pound, Im trying to use this site to GAIN weight, along with weight training I am using this site to track my intake. Which has been extremely usefull as I wasnt eating nearly enough even though I thought i was! Im able to make changes to my diet accordingly.
I would really like to be able to put in a higher weight goal, but cant :(

Gah, I'm in the same boat guys. suggestion seconded.

Bump!!!?!?
 

Since there was no reply to this, I'd like to bump it and see if there can be one. I too am trying to actually GAIN weight (I know, this is not normal in the US today), but this goal is not supported by the fitness journal.

Hey Devs....any help???

Same here, I too would like this feature enabled, if possible.

Weight Gainers
 

This is a diet for weight gainers! I do realize that this might be a weight loss site, however, Fitday also seems to be a great way to track for weight gainers as well.

I'm just leaving what I eat here to see if anyone has some suggestions on how I can improve/ take in more calories a day. My goal is to get from 135-160 of decent muscle mass in around 4-5 months.


Morning- Egg(large)x2 Toastx2 multivitamins, avocado

Post morning- 1/2 protein shake (495 calories)

Pre workout- 1/2 protein shake

Post workout- 1 protein shake

Dinner- 3 cups of rice, mixed veggies, 2 eggs, 1/2 pound of ground chicken/pork/beef/mystery meat, 1 cooked onion

or: whole roast chicken from the grocery store+ rice and eggs, 1 cooked onion, garlic

or: 2 servings of pasta+ 1/2 pound of meat+ 2 tomatoes + tomato sauce, 1 cooked onion, garlic,

Note: I sometimes separate dinner into 2 meals (still eaten on the same day), as I feel bloated some days.
Post Dinner- avocado, 1/2 protein shake.

Total caloric intake ~4000-5000

I switch it up with various foods, such as tuna, beef, salmon, mussels/clams, peanut butter/nutella sandwiches, etc. However, the protein shakes and eggs are a staple in my diet. I can't afford milk on my student budget since lactose-free milk costs about twice as much as normal milk. I don't do drugs and I don't drink more than around once a month or so.

I am currently on the Stronglifts 5x5 program, and I also do boxing, and interval running on the side. I was considering the GOMAD diet, however, I can't get myself to drink that much milk...

Its been around a month since I started this routine and diet, and while I've made significant strength gains, My weight has only increased by around 3 pounds( I weighed in at 138 post-workout today)


Questions, comments, criticisms, all welcome!

I think you're at a good level of calories for gaining, I wouldn't intentionally push it any higher. Here are some general comments:

1. Try to get a greater variety and amount of vegetables. You can gain a decent amount muscle with your sheer caloric intake, but please don't do it at the expense of your general health. Switch up your carbs so you maximize nutritional value, so instead of 3 cups of rice, try a baked or boiled sweet potato or yam.

2. How do you prepare your eggs? You can add more calories if you fry them nutritional oils like olive or coconut. You can also devil them with avocado and toss some spices on to up the antioxidant content.

3. If you are able to add in some milk you can use it to beef up your protein shakes with half milk, half water. It will last longer that way and won't hit your wallet as hard.

4. Out of curiosity, what's your protein/fat/carb % split?

-Nik

so no real food between breakfast and dinner?

Wow you need to eat healthier than that, throw in a bunch of vegetables with all that meat! If you log your food into fit day you can see all the nutrition levels and see what you are short on.

1. I do sometimes end up eating a massive massive salad, whenever the mood(my body) hits me, its made of house greens, and the meat above. I'm actually so ridiculously sick of potatoes, you don't even know xD, student budget= potatoes every other day for the past year.

2. I fry them in virgin olive oil, sunny side up, then I put the yolk on the toast and crush it, it makes me feel manly. =) sometimes I don't eat an avocado but maybe a pear, orange, or whatever fruit I've on hand.

3. Yea I haven't thought of that actually, great idea.

4. No clue, it does differ with my different meals, but I do know I take in in excess of 250g's of protein a day.


Well, I usually get up around 11 or 12, and the timing goes like this:

12-brekkers

2- snack

4-snack(pre workout if its a routine day)

6-snack(post if its a routine day)

8-dinner

9/10-dinner(if I didnt finish it)

11/12-nightime snack


For snacks, I might prepare a salad with meat and fruit if I'm not too full, or a peanut butter nutella sandwich. Usually I do around 4pm or so if I don't workout on that day. Perhaps I should add in my off-routine day schedule as well.

Right on, I do neglect my veggie groups too much I believe. I just started using fitday so I'll be able to start recording/see what happens! I'll try to make more salads as snacks! I probably do have a lack of fiber in my diet. Will start adding oatmeal, as per suggestions by gym staffers. I'm just afraid I'll have too much iron in my diet from eating too much greens.


With the addition of multivitamins, I meet my daily nutritional vitamin values, so I think I'm doing decent there!

gaining weight
 

i would like to use this program to gain weight, however i get an error when putting in my target weight...anyone know what the dealio is on that??